If any of you use guitars with humbuckers, and the humbuckers are wax potted, and you love vintage tones, try a set of unpotted pickups. I sold a set of Fralin pickups I had in one of my Strats and used the funds from the sale to upgrade my Les Paul. I initially was going to get a new set of Seymour Duncan Seth Lovers, but I found a guy selling a set of used Wolfetone Dr. Vintage pickups for less than the cost of the new Seths so I went with those. Wolfe has a fantastic reputation, and his pickups lived up to it.
The difference isn't huge, but it is significant. They still sound like vintage pickups. I had 57 Classics in there before, and the tone of the Dr. Vs is close to that. But there is a slight microphonic chirp to the notes and a sweet bloom that just sings when you hold a note. I use them primarily through one of two amplifiers, a Ceriatone Marshall 18 Watt clone and a Deluxe Reverb. Through the Deluxe, they are sweet when clean and they get a perfect blues overdrive when you push it a little. The 18 Watt sounds like 70s rock. They nail Dickey Betts' Goldie tone through it, and they clean up nicely if you just twist the volume knob back a few notches. With the 18 Watt, they do controlled feedback better than anything I've used.
These are not for 80s or 90s metal/rock/grunge. They'll do that if you stack enough pedals or have enough amp, but they aren't suited for it. They don't squeal at all at 70s rock levels -- up to AC/DC or even harder 80s rock like Guns n Roses. But they would be unusable with a true high gain amp, I think. What they are perfect for is rock and blues, especially 60s and 70s rock and blues. ZZ Top, Black Crowes, AC/DC, Clapton's Beano tone, Allman Brothers, Mike Bloomfield -- it's all there. I highly recommend trying a set.
